Costa Rica

I've never been to Costa Rica.  I went to Belize in 2010.  I was hoping Costa Rica would be a little less bug intensive.

Italian restaurants are very prevalent in the country.  I'm not sure why?

I'm not really drinking beer much these days.  But they had a lovely Marzen in Arenal that I couldn't resist.

Gallo Pinto is a popular dish that is more traditional Costa Rican.  I liked it a lot!  I also enjoyed the cooked bananas, plantain and cavendish.

My Huevos Rancheros were not exactly what I expected.  I was hoping the tortillas would be on the side to push my eggs, salsa, avocados, beans and rice around with.

 Here are some plantains with a seafood and rice dish I ordered.

I had this light blonde ale in Tamarindo along with the Nachos.  The beer was not as good as the Marzen, and not a good match for the meal.

I booked all of our stays through https://www.airbnb.com/.  I wanted the practice for future travels.  There were many of these cool little one cylinder motorcycles running around Costa Rica.

The picture below is where we stayed while on Lake Arenal.  Our rental in Playa Flamingo wasn't much to look at on the outside, but it was very posh on the inside.

I should say that we focused our travels on the Nicoya peninsula.  We flew into San Jose only because that is where my frequent flyer miles took us first class.  It was only my second time flying first class.  We did get a couple of nights in the Arenal area.  I think I would have enjoyed one more night there.

While on the Nicoya peninsula we went to Ostional to visit sea turtles.  You had to go early, before sunrise to see the babies hatching and struggling for the ocean.

We were surprised to find this adult female.  She must have just finished laying her eggs.

https://youtu.be/NLvOmTIMFZk

There were also those that hunt baby turtles present.

We visited Tenorio National Park while in the Arenal area.

We hung out on the beach a lot!

It was a birder's paradise for my wife.  I even saw my first Toucan, but not close enough for a picture.

There were many ants of different varieties, but my favorite were the leaf cutters.

A little research suggested I rent a vehicle with good clearance.  This little Daihatsu Terios had enough clearance and four wheel drive.  I didn't need the four wheel drive.  Still, I made the right choice as this little car handled the MANY dirt roads/highways in Costa Rica quite well.  I even had to drive through some water features that made me wonder if I should have gotten a vehicle with a snorkel.

Hasta Luego!

Monterey Pacific Grove Lighthouse 5k

I have been recalcitrant in posting about this race because it was such a disappointment.  I devoted a whole training cycle (my Fall semester) to this race.  It was only a 9 week program, and perhaps that is why it led to such a slow race.

My race support team (wife) wasn't able to make the trip.  Maybe that is why I raced so slow.

The race was on November 10th, 2018.  I ran it in 24 minutes and 1 second according to chip time.

My prerace dinner was also a bit of a downer.  I ordered a nice pasta with ragu sauce.  But the chef was really into their hot spices and it was too warm for my palate.

The room had a nice view of Cannery Row.

I'm trying to comfort myself in thinking that I ran 3.1 miles at a 7:45 pace.  If I could extend that another 10 miles, that would be a new half marathon PR.

There were some hills, it was crowded at the start line.  I'm not sure why that would result in increase of over a minute from my Stroke Awareness run.  Perhaps the 80/20 plan by Fitzgerald just doesn't work for me.  I don't want to go back to Hanson's, still feeling burnt out on it, but I don't have the time for Hudson's plan either.  I'm going to try and build my own training plan, probably a mistake, but hey, it's only a hobby.

I declined the medal at the end of the race.  I didn't feel like I had earned it.

New Diet?

So I got this book for Kindle:

It motivated me to buy a new scale that measures body fat.

It turns out I'm at around 11% body fat.  I think I can get it down below 10%.  At least that is my goal.

So out goes intermittent fasting.  I felt sluggish on my hard runs, weak in the weight room, and I was getting cold much more easily than in the past.  Out went white rice, and at least for now, alcohol.

My electric pressure cooker makes brown rice as quick as white rice.  Its assertive flavor also doesn't encourage eating a lot of it.  I'm trying to go to bed hungry (just a little).  It's only been a couple of weeks but I'm already down to 10.7%.

Getting used to eating in the morning has not been too bad.  The pre-run fruit or potato, followed by an after run bowl of old fashioned oatmeal has kept me in good fettle.  I don't put sugar in the oatmeal, but I do add raisins, walnuts, and milk.

My afternoon salad remains unchanged and fits well into the diet parameters.  Holding back to single servings for dinner has been more difficult, and boy do I miss beer.  The race is November 10, and then we shall see.

Running wise things have been going pretty well.  The 80/20 plan is nifty in that there is enough variation to keep it interesting.  I've only modified it with a few (10-12) treadmill hill sprints after the Monday run during my weight lifting.  I waited for week 4 to do this since the first 3 weeks had some hill training.  Short intervals have crested into 6s, but I doubt I can hold that for 5 kilometers.

I don't subscribe to the low fat part of the diet.  Reading the book, it seems Mr. Fitzgerald is just catching up on the research concerning fats - he now allows whole milk since it is less processed.  My blood pressure is in good shape, and I've started to ease a little more salt back into my diet, a little with the oatmeal, and with some of the meats I prepare for dinner.

Like beef rump roast:

Smoked Pork belly:

Salmon - smoked of course:

Today I pulled out the last of the Berkshire pork trimmings to make a terrine.
I folded the onions, crushed garlic, mushrooms, bell peppers, and celery into the pureed meat.

Done with puree and folding, now slapping into a pan:

I cooked this in the usual water dish placed in a pan at 280 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Out of the oven, with weight in place and ready for the refrigerator.

 I poured off the extra "juice" and put in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

Sliced and ready to be enjoyed.  

In retrospect, I should have wrapped it in the Berkshire smoked pork belly, aka - Bacon!

Salerno 1943: A Rommel AAR

My son and I hosted a couple of friends for a game of Rommel.  I wanted to try using the "Mid-War" operation sheets and the terrain placement rules as written.  I decided on a loosely historical setting of Salerno, pitting the 36th Infantry Division (the Lone Star Division) against elements of the 16th panzer division, and 26th and 29th panzer grenadier divisions.

This was the Rommel "Breakthrough" scenario, with the Americans on the defense.  The idea was the Germans were trying to breakthrough to the beach head to drive the Allies out of Italy.

Here are the forces:

Unit	#	Cost	Total
16th Pz Div
Inf. Battalion	2	8	16
Panthers	1	13	13
Wespe	1	4	4
			0
26th Pz Gren			0
Inf. Battalion	1	8	8
Panzer IV	1	13	13
Stug	1	12	12
Field Howitzer	1	3	3
			0
29th Pz Gren			0
Pz Gren.	1	11	11
Panzer IV	1	13	13
Motor Batt.	1	8	8
Field Howitzer	1	3	3
			0
155mm Artillery (Parent)	1	4	4
Nebel werfer (Parent)	1	2	2
			110
Americans (36th Infantry Division)
141st			0
Green Infantry (4/3)	3	7	21
105mm Howitzer	1	3	3
			0
142nd			0
Green Infantry (4/3)	3	7	21
105mm Howitzer	1	3	3
			0
143rd			0
Green Infantry (4/3)	3	7	21
105mm Howitzer	1	3	3
			0
M4 Shermans (Parent)	2	11	22
			94

The German plan became very apparent as they threw the bulk of two kampfgruppes at my lone regiment on the North flank.

Our extreme south flank was unopposed.


So our CnC decided a bold "Off Road" move to attack the German artillery was in order.

The Germans continued to press the north flank.

Which left our infantry battalion in a position to wipe out the 155 and Nebelwerfer.  Finally, moving to oppose our rampaging troops, the Germans send back a battalion of Panzer IVs.  Our troops retreat onto their supply source!

Back on the north flank the Gremans reach the second objective and our troops have more defensible terrain.

Plenty of fighting has taken place in the center too.

The lone battalion on the supply source was eliminated and the Panzer IVs returned to the attack in the center.


We got to turn 12, called it a draw, and went for pizza.  It was very probable that the Germans would take a second objective, but their own objective and supply source were still vulnerable to a determined attack, so we thought it could go either way.  The multiplayer modifications are based on number of players and not on size of forces, so this may have had an impact on this scenario with 110 vs 96 points.  The Germans had scads more armor, but the Americans had more units.  These "green" units with higher attack, than defense values were poor defenders, and encouraged us to attack.  I resisted this temptation with my regiment simply because the German forces were concentrated there, and I felt is was more important to delay.

Here are the Op sheets that I modified for our 4 player game. They were only reset once.  You can see the double boxes I put in for the extra tactics.  Rolling 8 or 4 dice for op "chips," and a maximum of 12 ops increased the attrition rate on both sides.



One last thing we noted about the terrain placement.  Due to the process, scenario, and forces, all of the "rough" terrain ended up on the American side of the table.  It seemed a little unreal.

Projects update

The Romans are now completely rebased.


I now have over 30 units, enough to fight Cannae if I wanted to.

The Carthaginians are coming along.


I still have 48 more gauls I need to paint from scratch, and 4 more Ligurians to "upgrade" a unit.  I may also add a unit of gaulic cavalry.  And, as I like play "To The Strongest," I need to paint some hero types.  I did this for the Romans already.  They can double for command stands too, if needed.


I finally painted some heavy artillery for my Germans.


Some of my Shermans are quite old, not painted by me, and generally not aesthetically pleasing to me anymore.  So I painted up some new ones.


A while back, I ordered a bunch of painted soviets from Reinforcements by Post.  Today I finally started basing them up.


I've been reading "When Titans Clashed" by David Glantz.  I'm determined to get my Soviet forces together for a spring 2019 offensive using Rommel.

Speaking of Rommel, I've struggled with how I want to portray mountains.  I was on the verge of gluing overhead pictures on 6 by 6 inch squares, but that was a little too board-gamey for my tastes.  Since I use a tree or two in a square to indicate a forest, leaving enough room for the obligatory three stands of units, I thought perhaps I could take the same approach with mountains.  Its the basic question of terrain that the minis stand on versus terrain that shares the space with the minis.  Typically I put stands on top of hills, soft ground and rough ground features. 

For mountains...